The present invention relates generally to video technologies, and particularly to techniques for blending and coordinating standard video content with immersive video content.
Various technologies have been developed for many years to capture moving picture scenes, to store them, and to play them back for audiences. Early and well-established technologies involve film exposure, processing and editing. Film was and is typically “shot” to capture desired scenes which appear on individual frames that can be played at desired rates to provide the appearance of movement within the scenes. Other technologies involve electronic and digital capture of scenes to produce raw data that is processed and stored on various supports and in various forms. The data is often encoded by algorithms often referred to as “codecs”. Technologies such as videotape are also commonly used in parallel with the more historic and more recent technologies. In many contexts, film and video taped content may be converted do digital data for ease of processing, distribution, storage, and playback.
In general, conventional video content is captured by a camera of some sort, and stored. Processing of the video may involve determination of what scenes are of interest, piecing these scenes together, splicing out material that is not desired, selecting all or a portion of the field of view captured, and so forth. Video data is commonly paired with audio signals to provide voice, music, sound effects, and so forth. More recently, various computer assisted or animated segments may be incorporated. In general, all of these techniques typically provided a single view point that was presented to the audience during the viewing experience.
More recently, techniques have been developed for what may be termed “immersive video” (IV). In these techniques, a number of cameras are used to capture various points of view during a scene. The video may then be combined from the cameras to provide viewing points of view that may be seamlessly stitched to allow a viewing audience to pan or move the desired view. The result is an experience in which the viewer is more “immersed” in the scene. Such scenes may be accompanied by audio as with standard video content. Movement or selection of the views may be done in a number of manners, such as via an interactive input device, movement of a hand-held device (e.g., a cellular telephone) and so forth.
To date, little or no progress has been made in combining standard video content with IV content. Because both forms of content will likely be of interest, there may be a need for systems and methods for combining them to enhance the audience experience.